Five Tips for Styling Bookshelves

Confession: I haven’t always been the best at styling my bookshelves. When I started decorating our rental home years ago, I would just throw my books on the shelves and call it good. When we bought a house though, I knew I wanted to take my bookshelf decorating up a notch and started scouring Pinterest for ideas. After spending months after months of putting this small project off, I decided to finally just do the damn thing. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted my shelves to look like, but as I started to wrap books in brown paper and pull out faux flowers, I started getting the hang of it pretty quickly and ended up truly enjoying this little project!

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Five Tips for Styling Bookshelves

1. Use books with neutral colors or wrap them. If you look at the second set of before and after pictures, you’ll notice I didn’t change much. Really the only thing I did was wrap my books with card stock paper and add some color. These simple changes made such a difference!

2. Have some sort of balance. I’m all about symmetry and balance when I decorate. I don’t like one side to be to heavier than the other. That doesn’t mean everything has to be symmetrical though. When you’re decorating, be mindful of your white space, making sure it’s is balanced along with any groupings.

4. Use items other than books. As I’m sure you can tell, I love using faux floral when I decorate. But I also like using anything that adds texture and interest to a space whether it be a tobacco basket, a vase, or even a bird cage!

5. Use pops of color. Use a colored vase, flowers, or really anything that makes you happy! I would recommend sticking to a simple color pallet though. If you use a lot of different colors for your accents, the space won’t look cohesive. Stick to 2-3 accent colors or a color family.

The most important thing when styling your bookshelves is to have fun and move things around. Leave it for a few hours and see how you like it and switch it up if you don’t! There are so many combinations and creative ways you can choose to decorate…sometimes all you need to do is try enough combinations that you find one that you love!